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Refractions Help

Refractions is a task pane for PowerPoint, Word, and Excel on Mac. It lets you edit (and embed new) GraphPad Prism charts inside Office documents in three clicks: scan → click chart → Update.

This help site covers everything you need to install, activate, and use Refractions.

  • Installation — install the .pkg, sideload the add-in, grant macOS permissions
  • Activation — enter your license key
  • Usage — full walkthrough for PowerPoint, Word, and Excel, including the insert-new and auto-refresh flows
  • OneDrive & SharePoint — edit documents stored in the cloud and put them back, plus the one-time IT admin approval
  • Troubleshooting — common problems and fixes
  • FAQ — Windows compatibility, Prism versions, privacy

What Refractions does

Today With Refractions
Right-click chart → Open Object → Save As .pzfx → edit in Prism → Export PNG → paste back into the slide / page / sheet → resize Click chart in task pane → edit in Prism → click Update

The Office file stays a real OLE-embedded .pzfx, so colleagues on Windows can keep double-clicking to edit each chart via Prism's native handler — nothing about the file format changes.

What you can do

  • Edit an existing embedded Prism chart in PowerPoint, Word, or Excel and have the preview image refresh automatically.
  • Insert a new Prism chart straight from the task pane: Refractions creates a fresh pre-allocated .pzfx, opens it in Prism, and embeds the result when you click Update.
  • Work on OneDrive and SharePoint files: Refractions copies a cloud document to your Mac, you edit its charts, and Put back returns it to OneDrive or SharePoint as a new version. See OneDrive & SharePoint.
  • Auto-refresh control: keep the close-and-reopen step automatic, or turn it off and refresh on your own schedule with a single click.

What you'll need

  • macOS 14 or later
  • One of: PowerPoint, Word, or Excel for Mac (Microsoft 365)
  • GraphPad Prism 9 or later
  • A Refractions license key
  • For documents on SharePoint or a work OneDrive: a one-time approval from your IT admin (see below)

OneDrive and SharePoint at work

Ask your IT admin to approve Refractions before you roll it out

Putting files back on SharePoint or a work OneDrive needs a Microsoft 365 administrator to approve Refractions once for your organization. Until they do, people can still edit local files, but Put back won't work. Send your admin For IT admins: approve Refractions.

Don't have a license yet? Buy one at refractions.app/pricing/.